Developers, not CEQA, are keeping a SoMa housing site as a parking lot

By Angelica Cabande : 48hills – excerpt

The city needs to buy 469 Stevenson for affordable housing.

Private developers, not the California Environmental Quality Act or community groups, have decided that the 469 Stevenson project will not be moving forward, and instead will remain a parking lot.

Yimbys, state Sen. Scott Wiener, and some of our local officials screamed at the top of their lungs that local community-based organizations, concerned about environmental impacts, gentrification, displacement, and affordability, had killed the 469 Stevenson project and destined it to remain a parking lot.

In reality, the EIR appeal of 469 Stevenson did not stop the project, and it moved forward and got approved…

The 469 Stevenson project is the perfect example of the speculative nature of housing development in San Francisco. The land is owned by a consortium of real estate investors under the name of “469 Stevenson Property Owner LLC,” and Build Inc is the developer that got the entitlements to create the project. Without project investors being able to guarantee that they will make a tidy profit, known as “return on investment,” 469 Stevenson will remain a parking lot… (more)

New study shows exactly how effective the infamous Tenderloin Center was

By Alec Regimbal : sfgate – excerpt

A new study found that staff at the controversial Tenderloin Center in downtown San Francisco were able to reverse 100% of the overdoses that happened in the facility during the short time it was open.

The facility was a part of the city’s Tenderloin Emergency Initiative, which aimed to provide resources to residents struggling with drug addiction. The center connected individuals to social and treatment services but also distributed sterile syringes and safe smoking kits. It even allowed supervised drug use.

The study, which was published in the International Journal of Drug Policy this week, said that 333 overdoses occurred at the facility during the nearly 12 months that it was open. For 248 of those overdoses, the center had access to oxygen in addition to the overdose prevention drug naloxone. Using one or both of the treatments as necessary, staff at the center were able to reverse each of the 333 overdoses that occurred, the study said…

Ultimately, the authors of the study — a mix of local researchers — concluded that the Tenderloin Center saved lives.

“Overall, this study suggests that the establishment of OPSs in San Francisco was an effective harm reduction strategy to save lives,” the authors wrote. “Availability of oxygen monitoring and administration, airway and ventilation support tools, and OPS EMT support supplemented overdose responses, potentially reducing the need for naloxone, and facilitating a less distressing overdose experience for OPS participants and staff.”…(more)

San Francisco leaders, neighbors not on board with ‘ridiculous’ skyscraper for Outer Sunset District

ABC7 News Bay Area

Nobody seems to like this one.

Tiny cabin village for homeless people is finally coming to San Francisco

sftimes – excerpt

San Francisco has ended the long years of resistance as it finally decided to shelter homeless residents through a tiny homes strategy, The Chronicle reported, with plans to establish those in the parking spaces between Market and Mission streets.

Since December, the spaces located at 33 Gough St. have been holding a “safe sleeping village”. Some 44 tents are present in these lots and residents have been receiving counseling to move them into permanent residences.

Cabins or tiny homes will soon replace those tents by late fall. The strategy has already been used in San Jose, Oakland, and the Peninsula.

The nonprofits Dignity Moves and Tipping Point Community have come together to establish the cabin – which will cost $1.7 million in total.

The tiny homes will stay for 18 months when the lease signed by the city for utilizing the space expires….(more)

Some people may complain about mask mandate confusion and the back and forth on rules and regulations for various businesses to carry out and enforce, but I would like to complain about the outlandish lack of reasoning behind the way government entities and their contractors have handled the housing crisis, starting with closing the shelters, moving people in and out of tents and temporary housing and generally having not coherent plant in place to do the one and only thing that government needs to do. Get people situated and leave them where they are.

I hope that when the dust is cleared we are able to figure out who among the many of private contractors “helping” the homeless made a profit and how they made that profit, because that profit was paid by the taxpayers and if their programs were lacking in quality or consistency and complaints were filed against them, as I know some were, there needs to be an evaluation on how the programs are handled and why some profits were made on the backs of the homeless.

We hope the media will cover these cases as well as they cover some of the non-stories about vaccines masks and other errata.

What, exactly, is going to get built on Geary and Masonic?

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

It was first described as a mixed-use development, then as housing for families …. and now it’s furnished studios for ‘students and visiting professors.’

Just before the Board of Supes voted to approve a new 101-unit project on Geary and Masonic, we learned a critical piece of information:

The developer isn’t planning just to build housing for “working people and families” It’s going to be at least in part furnished rentals, which often becomes corporate rentals.

Sup. Dean Preston said that the developer told him the project only “pencils out” if a significant amount of it is furnished rentals – which bring in higher prices.

“All of their projections are based on furnished rentals,” Preston said. He said the developer needed 19 percent return, that 17 percent wasn’t enough.

The project, the supervisors were told, will be financed by a union pension fund…

So the project – whatever it actually is going to turn out to be – was approved 10-1. But the question still remains: Why is the city going along with a developer’s demand that the rules be relaxed for financial reasons – when nobody but a few supervisors have been able to see the data?… (more)

Stop the eviction proceedings now.

All the courts are closed and all cases are continued for 90 days except the
Eviction Courts are continuing non-stop, even though the Mayor and Sheriff claim to have ceased eviction proceedings and the Supervisors are working on new legislation to halt them.

Call the presiding judge, Garrett Wong and ask him to stop the hearings now. His telephone number is 415-551-3693. You don’t get to talk to a human, but you can leave a message.

Sample script: “My name is ______________ and I am calling to ask that
Presiding Judge Wong use his power to close the courts in San Francisco
County and stop evictions during the CoVid-19 outbreak.”

Please give him a call if you can!

Breed Defends Endorsing Bloomberg for President: ‘I Don’t Take the Easy Route’

By Scott Shafer : kqed – excerpt (includes audio track)

San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s backing of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign may have caused some to do a double take.

As in, “She endorsed who?”

“I know that it may come as a surprise to a lot of people,” Breed told reporters after an event Thursday morning where she appeared defensive about her decision.

“But, you know, the easy thing would have been to stay out,” she said. “I don’t take the easy route. I do sometimes what may be hard or unpopular to do for the right reasons.”

Breed, the city’s first female African American mayor, had previously endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris of California. But when Harris dropped out, she left a lot of politicos in California with empty dance cards… (more)

There is a joke a friend used to tell about zebras and whether they were black with white stripes or white with black stripes. In the end, it dose not matter. Why do environmentalists identify as greens when that is the color of the American Greenback? In the end the arguments are always about money.

 

 

Massive new development would transform Dogpatch area

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Lots of office space, hotel rooms, housing — but how’s it going to work without massive new investments in transit?… (more)

Not to speak about the massive amounts of water and power and sewer and trash support this new “city in a city” will require. When exactly is enough enough?

 

SF Democrats side with mayor’s candidates for supe, DA

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

A Reform Slate elected to oppose real-estate interests can’t prevent the industry’s favorite candidate from winning the D5 nod.

The progressive majority on the Democratic County Central Committee splintered last night.

Although a reform slate was elected in 2016 specifically with the mandate to move away from real-estate-industry control of the party, the candidate for D5 supe who has the support of real-estate won a party endorsement…

By a one-vote margin, the DCCC backed Sup. Vallie Brown and refused to give Dean Preston, who has the backing of every major tenant group and most progressive organizations in town, a shot at a Number Two endorsement.

The mayor’s candidate for district attorney also got the party nod…(more)

Potrero Bus Yard Project meetings turn up many suggestions, little consensus

By Gisela Pérez de Acha and Julian Mark : missionlocal – excerpt

After four public meetings on a development project that could add nearly 1,000 new units atop the Potrero Bus Yard, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will review the comments from the 100 or so people who attended the gatherings and try “to figure out consistency and trends, if they exist,” said Licina Iberri, one of the planning managers.

The project, now in the planning stages, seeks to not only upgrade the 100-year old bus and Muni transportation facility but to add as many as 900 new units – at least 25 percent affordable – as well as add ground floor retail space. The market rate housing would help finance the project… (more)

Projects like these, that are opposed by the public, are forcing many people to leave San Francisco and the state. New figures on population exits from Silicon Valley are showing zero population growth. We don’t need more houses in the pipeline when there are already over 40,000 NOT being built. SFMTA staff is supposed to run the Muni not build future housing for non-existent residents.

If SFMTA staff managing the Muni system they would not have time to develop 1,000 market rate units and they would not need the money to support the Muni system if they quit tearing up the streets.

SFMTA staff who do not want to manage the Muni system, but prefer to design the future are in the wrong business. Voters should loudly oppose all future development projects that are built to hold investor dollars and add to the cost of living in this city for everyone who is stuck here. Quit treating San Francisco residents like cattle to be moved about in crowded containers. No wonder ridership is going down. and people are leaving.

The department that can’t keep the trains running on time now due to major switching problems can’t wait to put in more switches. The department that can’t provide a safe ride on the monster buses wants to hire security guards for bigger buses, instead of hiring more drivers to for smaller buses that hold fewer riders, with comfortable seats for everyone. Where is the humanity at SFMTA?